Outcomes, Control and Power

Finding the centre and stability within.

By Paul Merwart (Polish-French; 1855 - 1902)

“She finally asks, ''Who am I?" Once the life force flows through her body, the woman (mother or daughter or both), because she is no longer dependent, can relinquish her need to control. The symbiotic relationship is severed. She no longer has to try to survive. She no longer has to die. She no longer fears an unpredictable fate. She and life are one and she is free to celebrate her own destiny.”
- “Addiction to Perfection”, Marion Woodman

A woman is life-force and energy — within her are both the blood and the milk of humanity. With her blood she cleanses and purifies, with her milk she feeds and grows that which is powerless and weak. Because of her connection to life and being its guardian, and because her body and existence are often perceived a resource to advance the goals of others, a woman can feel vulnerable in relation to the external world. That is why she often fears it. If she is attracted to and seeks relationships with men, the physical vulnerability relative to the other sex may also fill her with fears, worries and anxieties.

You feel that the security is not guaranteed so all of your energy goes into trying to control life in order to feel secure and stable. Many women view men as a shortcut to the feelings of security and stability. But they also know, whether they are conscious of it or not, that men are not a guarantee for stability and security either — they are, at the end of the day, only an imperfect human being, and can fail or change. Sometimes it is not even an actual man that is sought after but an archetypal masculine — government, laws, politics, strictly controlled environments, men’s philosophies and perspectives, approval from the collective male mind on social media or anything similar.

Because of the need for security, most of the femininity, seduction and dating content made for women also narrows down to control. It does not matter what ‘angle’ is taken — the ‘trad wife’ hopes to control and extract security with sweetness, loyalty, children, service, through reflecting his values and ideals; the ‘dark feminine/black cat’ hopes to control and get that same security with seduction, power, sexuality, psychological games, through appealing to his impulse for conquest and taking for herself what she can before the high goes down.

Whatever it is that you are doing, if you are in a constant state of control, you will reach a point where you will feel disempowered, separate and desperate. Desperate to get something so that you can feel secure and shielded from life and the “big bad world” out there. You come to exist in the state of constant mutability to this external point. There cannot be any kind of connection to your interior (which for a woman is her truth and true existence) when so.

This world, indeed, is very volatile, unpredictable and anything can happen without any prior announcement. We also know that we cannot possibly have an absolute control over any autonomous, free being, be they our partners, children or anyone else. When we externalise locus of control to that level, we also burden others with the responsibility of sustaining our imbalanced and chaotic inner being, consuming and controlling them so that we would not fall apart and lose ourselves in our own abyss.

Instead of obsessive control being your way to navigate the volatility of the universe and the world we live in, what you need to seek is something that will give you the skill and orientation to navigate not having control. Your inner world has to be so rich, so stable, so full that you know that you are fine and can find your way even if everything falls out of control. To build this stable inner world, you first have to go to the existential basics, of asking and contemplating on questions like: “Who am I?”, “What do I value?”, “What is my relationship to life and to existence?”, “What is life for me?”, “How do I perceive and view chaos and instability?”. This will help you separate from the external world and its influences, allowing you to find root, stability and light within yourself. Once you establish the basics, you will be able to interact with world, life and men from a place that is more authentic and free, unafraid to be open and vulnerable because you have your own centre to go back to.